GOP Bounty Hunters Are at it Again

By |April 16, 2010

Be wary of people at supermarkets and other places wanting to help you register to vote.

Apparently, you might transform into a Republican without even knowing it…

That’s the message coming out of an investigative report just posted by our colleagues at the Orange County Register.

“Since mid-March, state elections officials have received written complaints from at least 99 people who say they were registered to vote as a Republican without their consent,” concludes the story written by Brian Joseph.

“The Register found an additional 74 voters who said they were duped or coerced into registering to vote as a Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions for causes like legalizing marijuana, fighting cancer or cleaning up beaches.”

At issue is a long-standing Republican practice of paying bounties to workers who sign up people to vote. Democrats don’t use the bounty system and have introduced legislation to repeal the practice without success.

The issue also came up in 2006 when a bunch of Republican signature bounty hunters got nabbed by the Register and a few even got prosecuted.

Most of the action is coming out of central Orange County where party leaders are trying to unseat Democratic State Senator Lou Correa.

— NORBERTO SANTANA, JR.

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